


Unknown Chambers

by Arkenna



Series: The Story Reread [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Claustrophobia, I am so sorry for possible heartbreaks and broken phones, Megatron being a dork, Molestation, Multi, My First Fanfic, Panic Attacks, Poetry, Political Alliances, Possible Character Death, Prostitution, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Tentacles, Triggers, Voilence, collection of headcanons, nah I'm kidding about the tentacles, writings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-04 23:36:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4157229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arkenna/pseuds/Arkenna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The High Council that aimed to make the planet and outer colonies the picture of perfection doomed their people to a life of servitude. In a society that judges your worth by the frame you posses, no bot can climb higher onto the social ladder.<br/>This a planet where people that are born small, will mate small, think small and die small. </p><p>The energon shortage wreaks havoc on the lower class. Those unable to cough up a coin for a much needed cube of energon, are forced to either die or sink to new depths to extend their lives.<br/>And while the lower class toils in bitter despair, the higher class mecha bathe in luxury, unable to ever feel hunger for the towers still stand proudly. </p><p>After a series of unfortunate events which ended the golden age, cybertron became a pressure cooker under the functionist regime. </p><p>Who knew that a revolution of this magnitude would have such a humble beginning?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Serenity of Sparks

“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”  
― Plato, The Republic

 

The faint hum of engines filled the small cramped hallway where two mecha whispered to each other underneath green synthetic light.  
One of them was a rather big and bulky individual with a rusty brown paintjob and a scowl etched onto his brow who towered over the slender and almost brittle state official.  
The official reached his waist and was a bright blue with a pale face, noticeably different from the busted up plating of the mining official, and while the bigger mech was wealthy enough to afford a better paintjob it was just very impractical when he observed the mining facility, and it got busted again within three hours.

The pair made their way towards a set of doors, their footsteps echoing on the metal floor.  
Paradron, the small blue one, clutched his hands around a big metal box that he had dragged with him for the last few hours. From the base, to the ship, all the way to this dump. His blue optics shifted nervously across the doors. The soft light reflecting against the polished walls.  
A loud smack was heard next to them.  
“Eep!” Paradron squealed, his high vocal tone ringed in Momus’ audials.  
“There is nothing to worry about sir.” Momus assured him, slightly irritated.  
Paradron was not so sure of that, the looming setting of the place they were in did nothing to ease his mood.  
Momus’ big form shifted towards a control pad which he placed his left hand on. The security system went offline with a loud beep.  
Paradron felt a shiver run down his spine, how could his superior officer leave him alone to make amends with this brute?

“I can see that myself Momus, now if you would please lead us to our destination.”  
Momus just grunted in reply, not bothering to answer to the pompous bastard. He too, was carrying a metal box. The heavy hitter was grateful for the blessed silence of Paradron, Primus help him if he had to listen to another word from him.  
“How long will we actually have to walk?” And the silence was gone.  
“I’m not one to complain, but the administration said it would take no longer than half an hour.”

 

That’s because I’m slowing the pace for you. He doesn’t even notices!  
He didn’t want to hear the mech talk and chose to ignore the pipsqueak, instead focusing on the gunmetal grey box resting in his servos. It wasn’t big, not for him, but Paradron looked positively dwarved by his. A snicker formed in inner mechanisms of his chassis. Tsh, high castes, there wasn’t much to them. 

The box started to stir the closer they came towards their destination. The outer metal of the box slowly increased in temperature which Momus felt through his digits with his neuralnet, furthermore he could feel the energy signature through the alloy that his processor translated in colors.  
The swirling colors in blue, green and white could only be described as ethereal. 

Momus almost regretted ignoring the smaller one for he somehow managed to talk even more.  
“Momus?” His patience went thinner with the second.  
“Momus? Momus answer me.” The pair made a turn to the right.  
“It’s at the end of this hallway sir.” Short words, short sentences. He hoped that the time would pass faster. What an aft.

Another door, and this time both Paradron and Momus had to hold up their altmode cards.  
Altmode cards were cards that showed the owner’s alternative mode to state enforcers and allowed the owner to enter certain places. The cards also had personal data on them and were basically meant to show one’s place in society. Now, normally Momus wouldn’t be allowed near the facility, but his boss had pulled a few strings for him.  
An accident caused by faulty machinery had cost the lives of some miners whom he supervised. Another mining official (whose name Momus didn’t even bother to remember) had failed to dismiss the ‘new’ equipment that the senate had cared to give them. Momus was of course aware that you couldn’t just throw away machines for financial reasons, but he still cursed the fragger that knowingly condemned his workers to certain death.  
Miners sometimes used chemicals to burn away the hardest rocks, this proved to be way easier, but more importantly; allot faster. However, the chemical waste that was produced in the process could contain fluorine, (which is highly flammable) and a certain corrosive element that can never be found in official documentation. Because of the mixture of corrosive elements, this particular molecule was even more dangerous to work with than fluorine gas. Which, what anyone with a chemical worker license would know, is not a sentence you get to say very often. A set of vacuums and pipes led the dangerous gas away from the mines and to the surface where it would be contained and neutralized. 

Let’s just say that of the pipes had a blockage, a big one. The leak blockage caused a building pressure until the bolts gave in, and a full ton of it spilled out into the mines below. The mine was dug deep into the planet which caused very high temperatures and so the liquid fluorine was quickly converted into gas.  
No one in the shafts realized what was happening before the air held a high concentration in it.  
Fluorine, as you might know, is a very good oxidizer, which means that it can set things ablaze that normal people might think are nonflammable.  
Like rocks, or metal, or things that have already been burned.  
One spark from a pickaxe and a fluorine fire burned everything down. Well, not everything, the miners that got out were able to tell the story. An eyewitness described the accident only as; “The whole shaft was on fire”. The fire had completely destroyed the bigger structures that carried the tunnels and most collapsed.  
Half of the mine was closed and miners were relocated to Primus knows where. The team that lost most of his members to the fire was reassigned to Momus, he had only heard about this one joor before he was suddenly promoted to a mining official knockoff. Great. His whole team consisted of three bots, and no new offplanet miners would be arriving soon so he was left with little choice.  
Next thing he knew Momus was sent off planet to pick up some newbies and deal with a bot who had a stick up his aft. Paradron had no idea.

The doors slid aside and revealed a dark room. No sounds were heard and nothing moved.  
Needless to say, there wasn't anything in it that required his immediate attention.  
Paradron opened his mouth. “That’s it?”  
“Wait for it.”

Momus turned on the light.

Twelve empty frames were laid out on cold hard tables in the middle of the room, the harsh white lights were barely reflected on their dark paintjobs.  
The frames were made from durable material, or would be when the spark would harden it out according through the coding in the processor. Right now, the metal was soft and pliable. It bore more likelihood to gallium than battlegrade armor.  
They might be offline and weaponless, but that didn’t mean that they’re unrecognizable. Most were military fliers and Paradron even noticed some tanks at the back of the room.  
But, this was not the first thing that the bot noticed, he was awestruck by their sheer size.  
Each one them could wrap a single hand around his waist. He shuddered.  
These empty frames were made for harsh conditions, their protoforms were encased with nearly impenetrable armor and each digit ended with a razorsharp and slightly curved claw.  
Their overall build suggested great endurance and strength.  
Civilians had seen them of course, but never up close, for that was just not how it was done.  
They're called warbuilds, and they don't exactly visit the same places as he does. After all, the times were these mechs roamed the streets of Iacon had passed before he himself onlined there.

“Momus?”Paradron asked, but was once more ignored by his larger companion, for he moved from the door. Paradron could understand his own hesitation, but not that from Momus, for all he knew the brute was surrounded by them most of the time!  
Heavy footsteps echoed on the stone tiled floor  
The room was sparsely filled, old and useless energy conductors lay in corners and the flaked paint was covering the floor around them.  
The ceiling of the room was twice Momus’s height and was covered in all kinds of pipes, the lights between them flickered and busted from time to time making small rains of sparks. The walls were windowless and on the rights was a large rusted plate that said.

Protoform Con Facility

This was all good and well were it not for the still colorless frames, grey and liveless, that lay on the metal slabs like puppets that had their strings cut from under the puppeteer.  
Pedes inched towards the first of three rows of frames. They were finished four orns ago but apparently they hadn’t had a clear from the higher ups, the state enforcers and military officers couldn’t be bothered. He stood next to the first slab and parted its chestplating.  
He put the box down and it stood with a loud thud.  
The faceplates were non-existent, the shoulderguards broad and the overall frame bulky and big, the finer features would properly form when the frame was online so he wasn’t worried.  
Momus sat down on the edge of the slab and put his servo on the smooth metal surrounding the empty sparkchamber, his digits hovered a moment over the box before his optics caught something out of place on the stabilizing servos. He shouldn’t be surprised really, and waved for Paradron.  
He didn’t react so he resetted his vocalizer and blue optics shot up to meet his. He waved again.  
“Right”And he scurried towards the frame. His long, nimble digits curled up into a tense ball until he relaxed them again and typed in de necessary codes. The box moved.  
The upright sides bended halfway and parted to reveal two swirling orbs, the light they made reflected on his palms. Sparkenergy, directly taken from the allspark and the most potent stuff you can get.  
Paradron’s digits gently coaxed one orb from its socket, the energy tingled and made webs of electricity on his palm. Suddenly, the spark leaped from his servo and straight into the sparkchamber.


	2. A Violent Shove

“The only sin is the sin of being born”   
― Samuel Beckett

 

The sparkchamber shot closed with a sharp clang of metal, the engine fired up and jostled the whole frame. The onlookers took a step back while the spark energy ran wild.

Momus pondered what its chances would be when it matured.  
You could hope that every new spark on this planet had an equal start in life, if you were naive enough. It sure sounds good in theory, every spark has the same size and the potential to power any size of frame, so why hold one above the other? The truth is far more ugly though.

The golden age was the age of enlightenment, spaceships that previously roamed only their tiny corner of the universe discovered new speeds. New worlds were established and now housed entire colonies of cybertronians. The ruler of that era was Nova Prime, and he aimed for the stars. His goal was to make the cybertronian empire the dominating force in the galaxy, sometimes using less than civilized means to obtain the worlds he longed for. This didn’t sit well with their neighbours as you can imagine. The previous crown holders took issue with Nova’s claims on the galaxy and caused a war with many casualties and a destroyed infrastructure as a result.   
Sensing the weakened state of the race in general, others took opportunity and charged.  
Cybertrons forces became scattered and cut of from necessary resources, it simple couldn’t handle a war on four different fronts and lost. Forcing the cybertronians back in their corner and ending the age of expansion. The soldiers returned to what was left of the cybertronian empire. New treaties were established with Cybertron's galactic neighbours. After that, the fast travelling spaceships were dismantled or left to rust until none remained.

Conflicts weren’t on anyone’s mind then, the warriors returned home and continued to live in the major warbuild cities.   
But while it remained quiet, not all was well. Tarn and Polyhex were the first to feel the consequences of war at their doorstep. Bar brawls, property damage and violence in general ran rampant in the cities.  
Warbuilds with anger issues and post traumatic stress disorder became an apparent problem, and more and more ended in Elite Guard custody. The council at the time noticed that they had lost their place in a functioning society. They ought to make amends.

Nowadays, after the Quintesson war which marked the end of the golden age, every frame had a place. You came online with a frame that suited the needs of your society and fulfilled that role throughout your existence. After all, we're all just cogs in one great Cybertronian machine.

Today's society has no needs for warbuilds

When the random flares finally calmed down, a sound that was remarkably like a transformation sequence sliced through the silence. Then, well, something happened. 

His optics opened and revealed a pale red color, his frame started to move in earnest now since he was actively trying to sit up. That which was first a grey turned a smooth green and brown with black details. The shoulders rolled, squeaking from disuse. The numbness would disappear in time, until then he would stay where he was.   
His blue companion had moved and was softly speaking to him to stop the rising panic in the mechling while he tried to move with increasing desperation.  
H-11 could be considered online. Lastly, the colors started to come through.

The smallest of the bunch was fretting over the newspark and checking every inch that was still unable to move.  
“Paradron, don’t fret it’s bad for your spark.”  
“How can you say that, he should have been able to move by now! This could be a gateway to future health complications!” Paradron’s voice reach a higher octave.  
“He will. It’s the miracle of new life remember. Now sit down and type in the last codes for me.”   
“Don’t need to be rude, you act as though you see it everyday.” The lithe blueish digits typed in a series of codes in his own box and handed it to Momus.  
One more to go.  
He didn’t feel pity, not really. After all, he wouldn’t be the first and likely not the last to end up in this position.

What to look for? The frame should be sturdy yet small enough to fit into the shafts with ease. Strong, yet light enough to not make anything collapse. Protoform D-14, too small, D-15, too thin, it was just a coincidence really that D-16 happened to pass.

“This should do.” And he placed Paradron’s box next to the mech to be while it spiraled open.  
He did look to protoform, as if trying to guess what its dominating features would be. The only recognizable thing was the broad shoulders and his slim waist and hips. Its faceplates were the usual blank. The thighs were slender and shapely formed, still, he could do without the disgrace that was locked around the calves.  
He stroked its calve and lingered on the ugly metal protruding just above the heel. Flightlocks, no frame in the facility would be an exception. 

He placed his servo into the box and the spark settled on it. The big servo looked out of place beneath the rather little, white orb. But something looked...odd.  
He raised his hand closer to his optics, suspiciously eyeing the radiating light. He may not be an expert, but it should fly right? Or at least hover.  
Momus waited, resting his hand next to the open chestplates but the spark took its time.   
It sat there doing nothing, in fact when he moved his servo, the spark kinda rolled with it.

He heard the newspark rattle behind him on the metal slab. He was able to sit up and look around, meaning that Paradron had empty hands for a moment.  
“You got minute?” He nodded to the spark.  
“Screwed up again?”  
“Twas your box pipsqueak. You did something to it.”

“Would you look at this, what’s wrong with it?”  
Paradron looked it over, checking for damage. No outer scarring or any evidence of serious conditions like Toxic flares or Red Dwarf Syndrome. The EM field was normal too, albeit a little thick.   
Nothing was really off, except the fact that it appeared sluggish.

“Just put it in. What’s the worst that could happen?”  
Momus raised an optic ridge, determined to say something clever.  
“I’ll have a weak mech in my team, that’s what.”  
“Then you’ll come back and pick a new one.” Paradron’s wrist bended, releasing the spark into its casing. He smiled, denta bared and his all gums showing. 

A diferent POV   
When you’re just a spark you have no processor, nothing to filter the emotions in order to make sense of a situation. It’s like the strange stage between sleeping and being awake. That soft fuzz where words mean nothing and you can find comfort in darkness.  
You try to hold on to the last tendrils of sleep but you’re forced to wake up. I guess that’s what it’s like.

There’s also noise, allot of it actually. It’s a rattle, and it’s getting louder and louder. You can feel the vibrations and your audials hurt. Your limbs are starting to come alive but it’s awful and annoying. Apart from that horrible rattle in his chest he also heard shuffling next to him.

“Told you he would be alright.”   
“There’s lots of things that can still go wrong you know, so don’t start gloating yet.”  
“I do not gloat, it’s undignified.”   
He tried turning himself to the sound, wondering what it was. So far he could not identify the source.  
“He’s moving!” Came from a excited Paradron.  
“That’s called shuffling on a slab.” Sounded a unimpressed Momus.  
“Pessimist. He’s doing fine.”

He needed to move, he really wanted to move. To open his optics, anything. His limbs were firing various electric signals causing them to start cramping and spasming, they were on fire.  
Codes were racing through his frame, jumpstarting it. He gasped for air, desperately cooling his body and choking from the amount he took in. Panic flooded his mind.  
When another electrical surge crashed through his body, he was finally able to crack his optics open.  
Not that it helped much mind you, he hadn’t adapted to the dark yet and nothing made sense.

Momus watched the youngling is silence, something was...off. The picture didn’t fit. Normally the colors should have shone on the outer armor already. Instead, its bulk remained a dark, almost dead grey while little flakes of red swirled around in bits and pieces.   
“His color isn’t coming in fast enough.”

The youngling vocalizer made a startled cry, laced with static as it too came online. Momus winched, he knew he had ignored the newspark from earlier but he hadn’t sounded like this or did he? He stepped closer to the slab, and took another look at him.  
He was moving like a drowning mech, his optics unseeing and his jaw set as he clenched his denta. Poor kid. Momus tried to reach out, knowing how futile it was as most outer sensors were yet offline. The only thing he got for it were scorch marks from the energy flares.  
So he waited, waited for something to go horrible wrong and for himself to end up with a dead newspark. 

After what felt like hours had passed, the newspark finally calmed down. His breaths were short, he was exhausted and he was covered with a sheen of vapor.   
“Hello kid.” Immediately the red optics shot up, looking at him without a sliver of uncertainty.  
“Who are you?” He inquired.  
“I am Momus, Momus of the of city Tarn, district 29 to be exact. And this is my temporary partner Paradron. Paradron would you show your faceplates?”  
And he did, the same unpleasant grin adorning his features.

“Those are interesting details you have on your paintjob.”   
“Eh, thank you?” The mech’s gaze unnerved him, so he decided to look everywhere except him.  
That was the reason his optics caught the movement of another mech so distance away.  
Gesturing to the figure he asked, “Then who is that?”   
“That’s your batchmate H-11. ”  
“What’s a batchmate.” Paradron all but squealed. “Oh look, he’s curious.” The sharp sound bothered him.  
“But then who am I?”  
A low rumble which he found more pleasant answered him.  
“You are D-16 from Tarn.” He said, tapping with his foot on the ground.

A rather awkward silence followed when the newly dubbed D-16 contemplated this new information.  
Paradron turned to Momus, thus completely blocking him from the point of view of D-16.  
“I’ll go give the same introduction to H-11 if you don’t mind. Don’t want it making a fuss.”  
Momus only nodded, slightly leaning to the side to keep looking at the newspark. Whose optics were dimly lit in thought. When the metallic taps echoed a sufficient distance, that’s when he decided to speak up once more.  
“Kid, care to stand up?” This time he could see a bit of hesitation.  
“Uhm sure.”   
He propped himself up to his elbows and managed to sit up, silently looking at Momus for assurance. Momus nodded again.  
“Swing your stabilizing servos over the slab, but try to wiggle your pedes before you stand.”  
Painful sounding cracks came from the joints, but he ignored it. No point in coddling him.  
When the cracking died off he gave the clearance to stand. D-16 shuffled closer to the edge with a EM-field full panic.  
To say that it didn’t go so well would be an understatement. It was eminent that he wouldn’t stand as soon as he touched the floor.

He was unstable and his pedes slipped out from under him, landing him on the floor. He would have taken the slab with him because he tried to grab it when he fell, luckily for him Momus stopped it before it hit his head.  
“Thanks I guess. That could have gone better.”  
“Doesn’t matter, try to see if you can get up.”  
It required a lot of acrobatics while grasping the edge of the slab and Momus but he was up.  
“Don’t ask me to move. Just don’t.”  
“Nah you’re good.” He took as step to the side, almost causing D-16 to fall flat on his face.  
Momus stuck out his servo’s. “Hold on.” He didn’t though, D-16 hold on to the table with a deathgrip. “So you’re just gonna stand there for the rest of your life huh?”  
“Well, no.” His EM-field flared out in fright again.   
“Grab onto my hands.”  
“I don’t know about that.”   
“Come on, at least try.” Momus emphasised on his servo’s again.  
“Here goes nothing.” And he practically swung himself into his arms, just hoping that he somehow wouldn't end up on the floor again.

It was difficult at first, but he was getting the hang of it.  
Your gravitational centre is between your stabilizing servos, so he should keep his head above that centre. He was getting good at it and they walked beside each other before he knew it.   
Still, even after his small victory he could see that H-11 was faster than him.   
“Paradron is leaving, we should go too.”  
“Leaving to where?”   
“Up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon: Spark aren’t able to sense allot. at least not without a body. Their pretty good at reading energy signatures and such, but not much else. A spark needs a body with audials, optics and other stuff in order to see the world in the way that we know.
> 
> I am guilty of comparing newspark to infants or very small children in some regards. Mainly because they have as much life experience as their human counterparts, and while they have the coding to function like an adult, they don’t have any wisdom.  
> They do not have any concept of anything, sure warbuilds have the concept of war (it’s probably in their coding), but it’s not a conscious thing. It’s more like how little children know to start walking, they have no idea what they’re gonna do with it, but hey, walking.  
> Deep down, they know what things are just as well as adults but they have no experience about it.  
> So the reason that they are so skittish is because every discomfort is literally the worst thing they have ever felt.
> 
> Also, about Momus and Paradron. I’m planning to make Momus in the future almost like the grumpy uncle. I haven’t figured Paradron out yet but he strikes me as a very dishonest motherlike type. You know, the one that manipulates you.


	3. Altmodes and Wasted Credits

“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”   
― Ayn Rand

He was D-16 of Tarn, so that’s a start. This is what he thought as the doors of the facility opened in front of him. He was disappointed when it revealed only an empty hallway.   
Paradron and H-11 walked in front of them and stepped into an elevator. It stank of old grease, but the younglings couldn't really place the smell, they only noticed that it left a sour taste in their mouths.  
So there they stood, huddled together while the newly formed legs started to tire.   
In order to spare his legs, H-11 shifted and bumped into the form behind him, D-16 kept quiet but made an undignified growl when he did it again. Of course he determined that the best course of action was to bump him right back.   
Hard enough to knock him over. On top of poor Paradron.   
Momus had the strong urge to facepalm, instead he pushed the newsparks behind him to give Paradron a chance to get up.  
He immediately proceeded to give all three of them a death glare. Momus just raised an optic ridge and chuckled. But as soon as he looked away were the two bickering again.

When the elevator finally reached the surface, the group was able to step out.   
Momus and Paradron walked out first while the newsparks lingered behind. The place seemed abandoned, but sounds could be heard from the distance.  
It was dawn and the smog rose high above the ground and was so thick that they couldn’t see the higher ends of the buildings that they were surrounded by.  
“Sir, where are we? And where are we heading?”  
“You, not we, are heading towards a second facility where you will be able to pick a proper altmode. One that will benefit your future career of course.”   
H-11 didn’t really know what to say on that, thus choosing to remain silent.

After a period in which Momus led the four between the maze of buildings they came to a halt.  
Paradron squared his shoulders.  
“This is where we’ll say goodbye. Momus, I trust you to deliver the proper documentation to your superiors concerning those two. Also, I would like to hear future updates about them.”

“And I would be glad to deliver them to you Paradron. Have a safe travel back to the capitol and be sure to tell those superiors that we met no problems whatsoever.”  
He still didn’t like the mech. Courtesy was a must when dealing with someone like him, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t like to wipe that smug look off his face. That mech could leave, skip away in the mud if he wanted to, but Momus’s responsibilities were not over yet.

Without any more words, Paradron transformed and skid of to who knows where.  
Momus looked in the distance, his optics following Praradron’s trail of dust.  
“I would be lying if I said I wasn’t happy to see that scraphead go.”  
“What’s a scraphead?” D-16 asked.  
“Someone who doesn’t know what the slag they’re doing, and then have it in them to brag about it. You’ll, unfortunately meet more of those in your lives.”  
H-11 not paying much attention. “Where’s Paradron going sir?”  
“To our capitol, to Iacon, where all the higher ups live in their fancy high towers, with their custom paintjobs and……..”  
Momus started walking and his voice lowered to a rumble in his chest. The newsparks quietly followed. D-16 watched his posture change, from relieved to irritated or maybe angry.   
“Maybe you shouldn’t have asked that.” D-16 muttered.  
H-11 just looked at his batchmate, one optic ridge raised.  
“No one asked you anything either.”

The rest of the trip went without further incident (except that one time that Momus stepped into something gross-looking and added some colorful additions to their base-language-packet).  
“Stay behind me, don’t repeat anything that I shouted earlier and try to listen to what I’m going to explain.”  
With those words the walls started to move. The previously solid looking wall slid aside to reveal multiple flickering screens.  
D-16 was pondering about breaking Momus’s instructions, because his curiosity demanded that he’d look at the screens.  
“These, are computers used to imprint an altmode onto you. I’ll plug both of you in and you’ll see variations of the same altmode. Don’t be alarmed if it stings, but if you feel any serious pain tell me.”  
“So we don’t get to pick it ourselves.”  
“You do, didn’t you hear me brat? Of course they’re not just giving you a free ticket to pick one from any class. You’re warbuilds, you pick accordingly.”  
Momus walked up to one of the consoles connected to the screen, and while he was fidgeting he called the eldest of the two newsparks.  
“H-11, come here and turn your back to me.”  
“What?”  
“Just come here.” He gestured with his hand to come closer.  
D-16 would have snickered at the face H-11 made if he wasn’t so unsure about the situation himself.  
Momus placed his hand at the back of his batchmate’s neck and forced it down, making his head crane in a funny way.  
H-11 made no sound as he was manhandled and waited for what’s coming next, he stood for a few seconds while Momus inspected a tiny port just under his helmet.  
He pulled a thin cable out from under the computer.  
“This might sting a little.” Then he forced the cable in without further explanation. 

Two things happened; the pain made the newspark jump and twist while the computerscreen came to life with a stream of new information.  
H-11 was disorientated and his knees almost gave out when Momus let go.

“Your turn kid.”  
Meanwhile D-16 had watched with round optics and not a little bit of caution.  
“What’s going to happen?”   
“Nothing unusual, just a routine plug-in.”  
“If it’s so routine then why is he in so much pain?” said D-16, still looking at a whimpering H-11.   
“The teeth in his medical port aren’t broken in yet, that’s why it hurt him. Yours aren’t either, after this it will be relatively painless.”  
“Relatively?” Momus was getting irritated, the longer they stood there the more time would go to waste. He was asked to pick up new workers, not babysit newspark.  
“Some things ain’t fun in life, now suck it up and come here.”

When a second cable was jabbed in his port, his vision grew blurred and a splitting processor-ache bloomed at the back of his head. Waves of dizziness washed over him.  
He stood very, very still until the last teeth had recalibrated and he could see again.

The screen was occupied with a picture of him, at least he thought it was him. He was slender with dark paints and hard edges, his faceplates were different though. His optics were bigger than those of his companions and the plating under them was littered with tiny little dots.  
There stood how old he was and how tall, where he was born and who his employer(s) was.  
“Momus, what does an employer entail?” Momus snorted.  
“An employer is someone who hires you, he owns the place where you will work and pays you in credits for it. Your employer would be some mech from an Energon Harvesting Organisation. They usually work for the government.”  
“What’s a government?” Momus grimaced.  
“Pit, if I’d only know that.”  
The older one didn’t seem like he wanted to talk anymore so D-16 dropped the conversation, turning his attention to the screen instead.

It asked him to pick an altmode, he was tempted to ask Momus the details about it once more but something in his mind gave him an image, or more precisely; a fleeting feeling of fighting against gravity. Somehow he knew what it was like to smell fresh air and to see the unforgiving glare of the sun while it was reflected on the clouds. He knew what he was supposed to be, he wanted to fly. He hated the weights on his feet, he wanted them of. D-16 didn’t know how  
D-16 didn’t know how he did it, simply that it happened. He willed an image and he got three that sorta looked like it.   
He choose the most glorious one.

 

Behind a backstreet whorehouse, approximately 230 miles from our young bots, Paradron had allot to discuss.

He stood across a femme, she was not pretty or outstanding intelligent but she had her fingers miles deep in the underworld, which is why she and her cronies were commonly used to handle the dirty work.   
Her frame was stocky and a velvety red with bits of off-whites between.

“Did you manage to pass them on to your guy?” The question, while innocent, was suddenly repulsive because she beamed a smile at him. Her lips were plump but her gums were a sickly black-greyiss colour, the last teeth she had stood up like yellow gravestones.  
He wished she smiled with a closed mouth, she was almost pretty when she didn’t smile.  
Nevertheless, Paradron did not flinch and locked eyes with her.  
“He accepted them with open arms, I didn’t know that the planetary sectors were so understaffed these days, he looked quite desperate.”  
“They are, don’t you believe it, they’re letting so many of them die that they’re cutting into their own servos.” She halted her small speech with a grave nod.  
“Did you get their serial numbers?”  
“I did, H-11 and D-16, onlined in that order and proteges of a certain Momus of Tarn.”  
“Alright.” She unspaced a small datapad and began typing, not keeping her eyes of the mech.  
“You know I couldn’t leave you outside. I got everything I need so it would be impolite to not offer you some energon.”  
Tired from the long journey, he agreed.

It was a couple of joors later and they had switched the regular energon for a bottle of highgrade. They sat across each other on cushioned lounge chairs, lazily swirling their highgrade in their cubes.  
Heads clouded with a familiar buzz, their glossas came loose and they slumped in their seats.  
“So how did the trip to Iacon go?” Paradron asked. “You went with Report and Wavelengt if I recall correctly.”  
“I did.” She replied.  
“And how did it go?” He shuffled to he edge of his seat, his back hunched to maintain his balance while overcharged. “Do tell.”  
“About as well as could be expected with those two.” Paradron remembered those two clearly, Report was Wave’s mate if not bonded and they both possessed the same amount of intelligence (not much at all if he were honest). Report was a big and broad mech, and would have scared the scrap out of him, if he didn’t have a voice that was just an octave higher than his frame-type should allow. It was a source of endless amusement for him, it just didn’t sit him. It was like someone shoved a pipe up his aft to make him squeal.  
“The first mistake was that we took Wavelengt’s ship, so he insisted that he should be the one that navigated it. Because that went SO well last time!”   
Last time, and he knew because he was there, things did not work out so well. Wave ignored or plainly missed every single route-director and they arrived in Tagon through the outer coast.  
He laughed. “Don’t laugh, I was in mortal danger! ”  
“Surely you’re exaggerating.”  
“You might think so but I feared for my life.”   
“So beside the obvious, did something new happen with them.”  
“I took them to a bar.” She sighed “I did not go well.”  
The chair creaked when Paradron leaned forward in his seat. “Do continue.”  
“It was a fancy bar, so It’s probably my fault for not predicting that something like this would happen. It was called Dozen by the way, you might have heard from it.”  
She then proceeded to describe how Wave had walked it only to be confronted by a waiter, he had asked him what he would’ve liked to drink.  
“He said he wanted the strongest thing they had, just right in his faceplates. You should have seen it.” She stared in her own glass. “Of course he wasn’t prepared for the actual strength of the drink so he got overcharged, no that’s an understatement. He was almost intoxicated.  
He, ‘thought it was like a spriter’, you get it right.”  
Yes he did. It always got even more fun when there was highgrade, because when there was, Wavelengt would get vulgar. Plain and heavily vulgar.   
“He had tipped halve a bottle of the stuff into his systems, with NO idea what it even was. He was completely overcharged.” She smiled.  
“Then he stood up and the whole place grew stock-still, all those pompous bastards in their seats just watching. Completely overcharged, everything was silent and he just screamed ‘I am so horny, I can’t be blowed dry’.” She cringed it her seat and buried her face in her hands.  
“It was so embarrassing, unbelieveable. ”  
Paradron didn’t even hear the last part, he was clutching his sides and laughing. Perhaps it was the highgrade in his own systems but he couldn’t stop laughing. He threw his head back until it was difficult to   
“How did you get home!” He hiccuped. “You’re transport was out cold.”  
“Report dragged us back somehow, after we scarred the bar-goers for life.”  
Primus, he had needed that laugh he realised, and he drank from his cube again.

The femme smacked her lips together, savoring the taste. He say her glossa dash from between her teeth to catch a stray drop. She cocked her head to the side.  
“How much did they pay?”  
Paradron looked up from his cube.   
“Why the curiosity?”  
“They were desperate for some fresh frames, can’t imagine that they would leave you with anything less than good.” She gave a knowing look.  
Momus was agitated when they met, his superiors were overly generous and that left him in charge. He had no idea that the mines were so understaffed, not severely enough to make them this desperate.  
“They didn’t indeed.”  
“So how much?”  
Paradron lowered his voice.  
“20.000...” His voice slurred at the end.  
Her optics widened until they resembled traffic lights.  
“For both?”  
“Per spark.” Paradron mouth curled into a smug grin.  
The femme cackled. Long and hysterically. Her voice skipped a few times and she moved her arms so sudden that the highgrade spilled from the edges of her cube. The spilled fuel splashed of the dirty floor and seeped between the holes that lead to primus knows where.  
“It’s like they asked you to rob themselves!” She started hiccuping.  
“There wasn’t even anyone there. The place was fragging abandoned! Only one mech, to check, place and receive. But I don’t even know he could read!” Paradron started laughing too, surrendering himself to the merit of overcharge.   
He sure sounded braver than he was then, surrounded by hulking warbuilds, each large enough to crush him if they lost their footing.  
When the femme’s laughter died down she looked at the bottle, it was empty. She seemed displeased.  
“Care for another?” She asked while she was still catching her breath.  
“Why not!”Paradron giggled again. She smacked her lips together once more and raised her voice.  
“GREENLENS! GET YOUR AFT OVER HERE!” The volume was impressive.

A green mech even smaller than Paradron shuffled through the half opened door.  
“What can I do for you me lady?”  
“Get my tenant a full cube of highgrade, the good stuff under the desk not the scrap we drown our clients in.” She turned to Paradron. “I’m pretty sure they scraped it off the floor somewhere.”  
Greenlens waited until his lady was finished speaking to her guest, or perhaps to get more orders. “What are you waiting for! GO. Shoo.”  
“Yes me lady.” And he was gone, Paradron watched him go. This was a whorehouse, he told himself, but was that one of the whores? He looked fine, no rust, no scuffed up plating, he looked rather nice.   
“One of yours?” he asked. His gaze was predatory and she recognized it in less than a second.  
“Going so soon? I thought the evening was going to last longer.” She sighed and continued.  
“Depends.”   
“On what?” Her digits scratched against her cube.  
“On how much you’re willing to pay.” she replied with a sly smirk.  
He felt quite tight behind his panel so he offered; “One hundred, immediate payment.”  
“Two hundred.” Her smirk widened and her optics gleamed. Paradron meanwhile was shocked.  
“Two hundred?” For a whore! he thought. “You’re daft, where’d you get him? Some high palace!”  
“Not really, but he was a custom made mech you know. Pretty, with big optics and I got good reviews on him. He is one of my priced mechs, but if you want cheap you can go to the streetcorner.”   
“150.”  
“You’re also drinking my highgrade. 170.”   
The mech came in with another bottle, completely oblivious to the bidding, and she gestured to fill their cubes with a wave of her hand. When he stood before the official his hips swinged and he made up his mind. He’d made worse deals before.   
“Deal.”   
His hand shot out and grasped Greenlens by the hips, pulling him on his lap, the mech yelped and he looked at the femme for help.   
Paradron’s hand settled on his aft and squeezed for good measure. “You can have room number 9, he’s yours until morning and make sure to transfer the credits before the end of the cycle.” Paradron could remember that, well maybe not perfectly because the mini was grinding his aft on his panel with his struggling. “I’ll bring him back tomorrow.”   
She smiled knowingly. “Have fun.”


	4. Arrival

“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.”   
― Albert Einstein

 

He didn’t like the dark, he realized when he descended into it.  
D-16 was built to fly through the darkest and emptiest corners of the universe but he knew he wasn’t built for this type of darkness. This was suffocating and awful, to know that millions of tons of stone were between you and the sky terrified him.

Venting became difficult the farther they went down and he could swear he heard the walls moving, creeping, inching towards him to engulf him.   
His parks skipped a beat when everything around him made a crack, he fully expected that the ceiling would come down or something equally horrible. The plates that surrounded him gave one last crack, like a ember dying in a fire.

He wasn’t sure how to feel when the elevator stopped, for it meant that they wouldn’t go down any further, but it also meant that he would have to leave whatever little protection the metal shell gave him.

Momus told him it was a mine. While drinking his first cube of energon he was told where it came from, mecha mined the raw crystals. He was also told that he would be one of those mecha.  
The mine wasn’t empty, but it was dark and clammy. The sparse light did little to nothing to improve vision for it couldn’t even reach the ground. His optics were having trouble adjusting. 

Unknownst to him, mines were often used in the past as punishing facilities, the dark wasn’t any better than a cell to be honest. This mine was stationed in Tarn, partially under the industrial terrain of corporation Vakker. Vakker made metal beams and other heavy construction materials, it is said that the name Vakker found it’s way from an extraterrestrial language and meant something like clean, or beautiful. Even it that was true, Vakker did not make true of his supposed nature and is the living proof that the world has a strange sense of irony. 

“This is it. It’s not much I know, but it will become familiar.”  
They started walking and the ground had a steady rise which he could felt in his struts. They kept walking until he noticed that the lights were starting to dim.   
He stood still to look at one of them and he noticed that more than a few of them were unlit, or broken with electrical sparks flying around.  
H-11 called when D-16 did not follow.   
“Coming.” he answered.

He sped up his pace to keep up and saw that his companions had gathered around a glass-like room where a mech handed out things to a queue of miners. Some of those mecha were even bigger than Momus!  
He suddenly became very conscious of his size, or rather lack of.   
Said mech tapped on the glass to get the attention of distributor. The queue growled as one single beast when denied. Momus’s hissed with bared teeth and they shut up. His fangs gleamed, standing out between a row of an otherwise flat row and D-16 found his tongue wandering over his own pair, wondering what they were for and bit his glossa leaving a taste of energon in his mouth.  
The stranger handed a few flat things to their mentor. Momus turned to the newsparks. “I’m gonna give you these, these are cards and they’ll monitor you. You’ll check in at the beginning of your shift, if you don’t, you don’t get paid it’s that simple. If you want your equipment you hand over your card to the distributor and he’ll place some on your name. You hand them in at the end of your shift. ”  
“But what if gets broken or lost?”  
“You’ll pay for it if you break it, if it get lost you’ll be charged with theft. So don’t let that happen.”

The cards were pushed into their servo’s without further ceremony. “You’ll get your quarters assigned to you in a joor. The lights go out in two joors.” 

When he left, the tunnel suddenly looked thrice the size it was before and D-16 never realized how much the mech loomed over him. A secret feeling escaped him, a feeling of relief. 

So there he stood, in front of his quarters which he shared with three other mecha. His put the card on the scanner and the slid open with a whoosh.  
Three mecha, it shouldn’t be impossible to be civil to each other right?  
One other mech was there and he was recharging. Minding his steps he walked to the only unoccupied berth, (at least he thought it was, seeing that it had no visible scuffs and stuff lying on it).  
He didn’t really have anything that belonged to him yet, only his card. Confused and tired, he sat down and the berth protested under him with a threatening creak.

“What’s your name?” The mech on the berth was awake, his voice was slurred and he had one optic open, one that drilled into his frame.  
“My serial number is D-16.” The mech found this very funny for some reason.  
“Well D-16, how old are you exactly?”  
“I came online 22 joors ago. Do you know Momus?” The smile on the stranger disappeared, it was a pity D-16 decided, it looked good on him.  
“I do know him.” He held up his left servo. Or what was left of it, it missed all his digits and part of the palm, the edges of the wound were twisted and black. “Happened on his watch. Let me guess, he’s your mentor.”  
“He is. What happened?”  
“Fire, fluorine fire if you wanna starts getting all technical about it. Didn’t know that Momus was this desperate for new workers.” He paused. “You’re a newspark.”  
“There was another mech with me, H-11, he was assigned to Hadron.”  
“Then you’ll see him around, Hadron and Momus like to switch miners from time to time with each other.”   
D-16 looked at the mech, and noticed he looked... old. His was scuffed up and his plating reflected his life full of hard labor. He looked a little like him. Broad shoulders, a slim waist in comparison and thrusters. Thrusters surrounded with the same metal bands.  
“You don’t like it here.”  
“What makes you think that?” The mech eyed him with a raised optics ridge and laughed.  
“Ha, you walk like a glitchmouse! All soft steps and optics looking everywhere. It’s no shame kid, everyone hates it here, especially if you’re a flier. Is that claustrophobia kicking in yet?”  
“Claustrophobia?”  
“It feels like the walls are trying to eat you, noticed anything?” D-16 nodded.  
“You’ll get used to it, ”  
“What’s your name?”  
“Terminus of Tarn, at your service.”

The next day would be one of hard work for him, Terminus knew. His hands would bleed precious energon before the pickaxe could harden them, he made a mental note to ask a favor for his roommate. He didn’t feel like listening to pained moaning all night cycle.   
D-16 however, didn’t know what to make of this new mech, he wasn’t like the foul mouthed Momus or the pompous and skittish Paradron. So he sat down on his berth and played with his card, watching as it slid through his digits again and again. The walls still loomed and his chest felt heavier than on the surface, but in here it wasn’t as bad. Maybe he would have a change in the future to return there, maybe he would not. This young mech ignored his roommate in favor of processing his very first day of life. What a day it was.

And Terminus, that old and slightly weary mech smiled a knowing smile. The kind of smile that betrayed a person of knowing more that the other, or knowing what they shouldn’t know.  
The dark ate, some would even say it devoured.  
Yes, this mech would get used to it, he’d have to.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I do hope you enjoyed that. I wasn’t really all that sure about posting a story at all to be honest and I was quite nervous. I had attempted to write before, (even half a book which I will never post), but this is my first fanfiction.  
> Please tell me if I missed possible triggers and other things so I can fix them.  
> Also, please comment or suggest things, I can sure use critisism :).
> 
> I want to thank MlleMusketeer and spaceliquid for inspiring me to take the keyboard again.  
> The mistakes made in chemistry are mine.
> 
> I am planning to add a chapter once every 1 or 2 weeks.


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